I Drive Your Truck
by weirdgirl42
Summary: It seemed so wrong that Gibbs would let something as superficial as mortality keep him from living forever. Based on the Lee Brice song. Established TIVA, Gibbs/Tony father/son. Character Death.


_Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS. If I did, Tony would have said "I love you" to complete the Star Wars reference. I also do not own the song "I Drive Your Truck" on which this fic is based._

_Enjoy!_

**I Drive Your Truck**

If Tony was being honest with himself, a part of him had always believed that Gibbs would outlive them all. It seemed so wrong that Gibbs would let something as superficial as mortality keep him from living forever. And it was completely inconceivable that that man's life would be ended by something as random as a patch of ice.

A patch of ice. A stupid patch of ice and a Rube Goldberg series of events that ended with Gibbs' heart stopping. The man had been sitting at a red light, a teenage girl in a Honda civic came up too fast, slid on the ice and sent Gibbs' NCIS issued sedan into the intersection where he was t-boned by a semi. The EMT's said he hadn't had a chance. Ducky had held Abby tightly at the hospital and told them all that Gibbs had felt no pain.

The teenage girl had shown up to the funeral, Jackson and McGee kept Abby from showing the girl what a forensic scientist could do to a body. Tony had silently been hoping they'd let the lab tech loose.

Silence had been Tony's main response to the whole event. It wasn't until several days after the funeral, after the reading of the will, that he'd finally let himself break. He and Ziva came home from the lawyer's office and Tony went to take a shower. There, the silence he had felt in his head since the terrible phone call from Abby two weeks before finally overwhelmed him. There was too much silence, too many things he would never hear Gibbs say, too many things Tony should have said, too many things his Boss would never know.

Ziva found him sobbing fifteen minutes later, banging his fist against the shower wall, cursing the teenage girl, ice, and God. Ziva turned off the water, wrapped him in a towel, and held him until the shower and his eyes were dry. By the time the boys came home from school, Tony felt more like himself. He was able to genuinely laugh at Asher's story of the epic game of freeze tag that day at recess, which involved more dramatic twists and broken alliances than a spy movie. And he was able to really focus on the task of helping Nathan with his math homework.

That night, as he stood in the doorway of the boys' room, watching them sleep, Ziva came up beside him and wrapped an arm around his waist. Without a word, she slipped a set of keys into his hand. When he looked at her questioningly, she smiled and told him that everyone mourns in a different way.

Tony wrapped his hand around the keys and left through the front door. The truck was parked on the street in front of the house, there was no room for it in their garage. The blue paint was faded and Tony could see rust building around the tire wells. He unlocked the door and slid into the driver's seat.

For someone who hated lawyers, Gibbs had been incredibly thorough when it came to settling his affairs. He left his house to Abby with a note saying that since he couldn't leave it to Kelly he was leaving it her.

McGee was given all the medals and commendations Gibbs had received over the years, as well as all the woodworking tools from his basement. McGee was instructed to make sure he taught his daughter Kate how to make something with her hands, not just her computer.

To Ducky, Gibbs left his books. Ducky had smiled in the lawyer's office, recounting the first time he and Gibbs had met and discussed the literary merits of Hemmingway.

Ziva was given all of Gibbs' weapons. Including his knives, which Tony knew Ziva kept locked away with Tali's opera programs and Ari's bar mitzvah prayer shawl.

All of Gibbs money had been put away in trust funds for Tony and Ziva's sons and McGee's daughter. The money could be accessed for college or any other educational pursuits they may want. The amount was larger than anyone had anticipated. Apparently Gibbs' past alimony payments had been greatly exaggerated.

Which left Tony. When the lawyer was reading out the will, Tony wondered whether Gibbs had left him anything at all, besides the generous gift to his children. In the end, Gibbs had left him two bequests. The first was a short note. The second, was the truck.

For a few moments, Tony just sat in the driver's seat and took it all in. There was a faded NCIS cap on the dashboard, no doubt a spare since Gibbs had been wearing an identical hat when the EMTs pried him out of the car. Tony saw a couple of old Marine t-shirts in the backseat and smirked at the empty water and Gatorade bottles that littered the floor in front of the passenger seat. Taking a breath he reached up and grasped the dog tags hanging from the rear-view mirror. He traced his fingers over the raised letters and numbers.

Eventually he started the truck and pulled away from the curb. Country music blazed through the speakers from the station Gibbs had left the radio on. Tony didn't change the channel, he just turned the volume up. He wasn't even thinking about the direction he was driving, he just drove. The rational part of his brain knew that the truck was not the most fuel efficient vehicle and that driving it was going to cost, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Miles of highway passed beneath the wheels. The city faded into the background and turned to trees and stars. He drove and drove until he reached Rock Creek Park, the first place he had ever worked a case with Gibbs as an NCIS agent. He drove to the golf course and parked illegally in the closed lot. Turning the ignition off he got out of the front seat and hopped into the truck bed.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there, hands folded behind his head, staring up at the stars. All he knew was that for the first time since Gibbs' death, Tony felt like he was really coping. He pulled the now-worn piece of paper out of his wallet. The note Gibbs had left him. Tony couldn't see the letters in the dark but he had read it so many times in the last two weeks he didn't need to see the words. It was simple, to the point, just like the man who'd written it.

_I'm leaving you the family Tony, take care of them._

Tony took a breath, "On it, Boss."

**The End**

_Please review._


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